Chapter 34 · Chapter 34

The silence that settled over the majlis was heavier than the scent of raw oud smoldering in the brass mabkhara between the pillars. My uncle did not flinch, but the muscles along his jaw tightened beneath his trimmed beard. Across the low perimeter of diwans, two cousins lowered their gazes to their finjans, unwilling to meet Hatim’s eyes.

None of them dared speak over him, not while he stood centered in the room with the unyielding presence of a man whose authority did not require a raised hand.

Yet I did not leave the answer in his hands alone.

I gathered the edge of my black abaya with my right hand, stepping forward until the low carved table of polished cedar was directly before me.

Resting upon its velvet runner was the heavy, leather-bound volume—the ledger of seclusion, the traditional record by which the women of the estate consented to withdraw from public representation, ceding their signatures, their presence, and their voices to appointed male guardians behind locked screens.

For generations, whenever scandal or tension threatened the peace of the northern estates, that book had been carried into the hall. It was called protection; it was called discretion.